Yahoo, meanwhile, slipped 0.3 percentage points to 21.3 percent, and Microsoft dropped 0.2 percentage points to 9.4 percent–both figures are record lows for the companies, Mahaney said.

Lower in the rankings, AOL dropped 0.1 percentage points to 4.8 percent, while Ask.com rose 0.1 percentage points to 4.7 percent for March, according to the report.

“We were somewhat surprised at the March uptick, especially since the company had previously alluded that the unusual Easter timing could impact search activity,” said Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney in a report Tuesday that quoted the ComScore numbers.

Google gained market share in the United States over search rivals in March, rising 0.53 percentage points to an all-time high of 59.8 percent, according to new ComScore results released Tuesday.

The number of searches increased 18 percent compared to March 2007. Google’s tally rose 18.4 percent, Yahoo dropped 1.8 percent, and Microsoft increased 9.4 percent.

I believe that the players are still too expensive, the media costs too much, and there isn’t enough of a jump in quality between DVD and Blu-ray to force people to jump to the new format. Plus, streaming video is slowly but surely becoming a force in the entertainment space.

Being portable means adding value to the consumer experience. Portability was a major barrier to entry for Blu-ray. If you can’t bring your Blu-ray films with you on a road trip, DVD is still relevant in your life.

There’s another issue holding Blu-ray back: it’s not portable. Unlike DVD, you can’t bring Blu-ray with you. And you certainly can’t run into Blockbuster, pick up a Blu-ray movie, and play it in your
car to keep the kids quiet on a road trip. That’s been a contributing factor to DVD’s staying power.

Does portability guarantee success for Blu-ray? Of course not. It still has issues that are holding it back from becoming the definitive source of entertainment in the home. But Blu-ray is quickly becoming more attractive to the consumer who wants to do more than watch a high-def film in the family room. And that counts for something.

Welcome to portability, Blu-ray.

It’s an important step forward for the format.

Check out Don’s Digital Home podcast, Twitter stream, and FriendFeed.

I realize that it’s just one device and that the in-car systems will need to become ubiquitous before DVD could really become irrelevant away from home. But it’s one advantage that DVD will no longer enjoy. Plus, it tells us that companies are thinking about Blu-ray as more than a bridge between DVD and streaming. And it tells us that tech firms are willing and ready to invest in products that will enhance our Blu-ray viewing experiences.

(Credit: Impress)

Though it went largely unnoticed, Panasonic announced last week that it was bringing an in-car Blu-ray player to store shelves. The two-part system also features a “7-inch display, GPS, a CD/DVD player, Bluetooth, a 40GB hard drive, and
iPod/iPhone compatibility.” So far, no price has been announced.

Until now.

I’m not convinced that Blu-ray will ever be as successful as DVD.

What do you think of the new 250GB/month Comcast cap?

( polls)

Apple, too, is just at the beginning stages of MobileMe, a service that offers sync and file backup to multiple devices. Additionally, the rumored all-you-can-eat iTunes could drastically change how much downloading users are doing on a monthly basis.

A far greater problem may be the slighting of cloud storage services that offer file transfer and backup. Services like Carbonite and Mozy let you back up and transfer the entirety of your computer’s storage several times per month, which on many standard consumer machines can be in the hundreds of gigabytes.

Starting October 1 customers of Comcast’s residential data services will have an invisible barrier on their monthly data usage. Under the new guidelines of Comcast’s Acceptable Use Policy announced Thursday, that cap will be set at 250 gigabytes per month, per account.

So what do you think about this new limit? Let us know in the comments and the poll below.

Users who go over the limit will get a courtesy call from Comcast’s customer service for the first instance. However, under the new policy a second-time offense means the service is immediately suspended for an entire calendar year.

Surprisingly the company is not providing any tools to help users monitor their current usage. An FAQ on Comcast’s support site simply suggests that customers do a “Web search” for bandwidth metering software that will track this amount for them. Going forward there may be plans to set up alerts over certain thresholds, or bundle some official tool as part of the company’s starter software.

* Send 50 million e-mails (at 0.05KB/e-mail)

* Download 62,500 songs (at 4MB/song)

* Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2GB/movie)

* Upload 25,000 high-resolution digital photos (at 10MB/photo)

Comcast notes that the median usage for most residential customers falls somewhere between 2GB and 3GB, a number that is regularly broken within a matter of hours and sometimes minutes by customers taking advantage of streaming HD video and online backup services. The company breaks down basic usage numbers similar to what’s seen on the marketing materials on a consumer hard drive:

Apple’s stock price, which has been on a steady upward tear for the last few years, closed at $179.30 on Wednesday, sending its market capitalization to $158.84 billion.

Both companies are still behind tech stalwarts like Microsoft and IBM, which closed with a market caps of $254.83 billion and $170.44 billion, respectively.

Exxon Mobile, which topped the Financial Times 500 list of largest companies by market value as of June, closed Wednesday with a market cap of $406.02 billion.

That figure, Apple fans were quick to note, is higher than that of search engine giant Google, which closed at $500.03 on Wednesday, with a market cap of $157.23 billion. (Market cap is simply the value of shares times the numbers of shares outstanding. While Google has a higher share value, it has far fewer outstanding shares than Apple, 314.45 million vs. 885.88 million.)

The five-driver iF500 speaker system will retail for $249.

All-in-one audio system for iPod,
iPhone, and other portable audio players
Five-driver speaker system incorporates vibration and resonance control technologies coupled with low-frequency porting and midrange-tuned cavities for smoother cleaner audio
Digital FM radio
Aux input for connecting other audio devices
Signal-to-noise rate: 85dBA
Power output: RMS 10W x 2 + 32W (subwoofer)
Bass driver unit: 5.75 inches, magnetically shielded
Midrange driver: 2.75 inches, magnetically shielded
MSRP: $249 Edifier makes some interesting-looking audio products that also sound pretty good, but they don’t always make it to the U.S. We look forward to trying the iF500 out and should get a review sample soon.

(Credit:
Edifier)

After hitting the European market earlier this year, Edifier’s bulbous iF500
iPod/iPhone speaker system speaker is making its way across the Atlantic to both the U.S. and Canada.

Here’s a look at its basic specs:

Gary Kovacs, vice president of product management and marketing for Adobe, was promoted to general manager of the new combined business unit and will take over for Ramadan. Kovacs will report to Kevin Lynch, the company’s chief technology officer.

Adobe Systems, maker of Photoshop and Acrobat software, is folding the company’s mobile group into its platform operations as a way to create one platform for computers, handsets, and other consumer devices.

The move coincides with the departure of Al Ramadan, who was in charge of Adobe’s mobile unit. Ramadan spent nearly 10 years at Adobe and Macromedia, Adobe said in a press release.

The company is still trying to consolidate business units from its 2005 acquisition of Macromedia.

Iriver had quite a showing at CES this year, but even the product managers working the booth weren’t quite sure which of the many MP3 players and PVPs would be hitting the U.S. market. The only thing that seemed certain of was that it wouldn’t be a lot of them.

Size: 3.6 by 1.9 by 0.4-inches and 2 ounces
Screen: Full color 2.4-inch TFT LCD with 320×240 resolution
Battery life: 17 hours for audio and 5 hours for video
Expansion: integrated microSD card slot
Audio support: MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, Audible, WMA (including subscription services)
EQ: 10 presets + SRS WOW HD + custom EQ
Photo support: JPG, BMP, GIF
Video support: MPEG-4, WMV SP
Extra features: voice recording and FM tuner with 25 presets and recording

(Credit:
iriver)

(Credit:
iriver)

The E100 is a pretty sleek device with an interface similar to the Clix, only controlled by a click pad or touch pad rather than the edges of the screen. I’m really digging the minimalist look and the multitude of color options. (This is unconfirmed, but I’ve seen images of all of the following colors: dark brown, dark gray/black, light pink, light blue, light green, dark green, and white/silver.) The E300 is expected to hit shelves by the end of this month and will be available in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB capacities for $89.99, $109.99, and $159.99. This pricing is reasonable, especially given the fact that iriver’s players of late have all boasted higher-than-average price tags. Plenty of specs after the picture.

As such, the nice young gentleman who gave me a tour of the booth stuck to the products he thought might arrive on our shores; the E100 was not among them. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get to see this player in person, but I’m pleased to say that we’re going to get a crack at it here in the states.

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

In fact, it worked for 15 days, at which point the built-in DVD player refused to play any more DVDs (leaving my poor wife scrambling during a business presentation). And, naturally, the vendor’s return policy for refurbished items expired after–you guessed it–14 days. I thought they’d cut me a break, but no, they sent me to the manufacturer for repairs (bad vendor, bad!).

Yeah, I made a few mistakes along the way (the big one: buying a TV with a built-in DVD player. Those things always break), but it’s the only bad experience I’ve had with refurb gear. How about you? Hit the comments page and share your own tales of woe (or satisfaction).

From time to time I’ll post deals on refurbished/recertified items, which are sold at a discount because they didn’t meet a manufacturer’s quality standards or were returned (for one reason or another) and can’t be sold as new. What do you think of these deals? Have you had good luck buying refurb gear, or did you end up regretting it? I’d love to hear your stories–and so would your fellow Cheapskate readers.

I’ll kick things off with one of my own. Last year, Mrs. Cheapskate needed an LCD TV with a built-in DVD player. I found a great deal on a 20-inch refurbished model. When it arrived, however, we discovered that the stand had broken clean off the base of the TV as a result of shockingly poor packaging. To the vendor’s credit, they picked up the busted set and shipped a replacement with a minimum of fuss.

(Credit:
Apple)

The replacement’s packaging was equally atrocious (seriously, the TV was wrapped in a single layer of bubble wrap inside the box, nothing more), but it appeared to be intact. Most importantly, it worked.

(Credit:
RIM)

RIM just released the BlackBerry Bold shown here, but could have a touch-screen model coming soon.

RIM is by far the leading smartphone company in the U.S., but Apple has come out of nowhere to take second place, and the competition should intensify with Apple’s plans for business-friendly software and RIM’s continued advance into the consumer market. RIM has started advertising the BlackBerry during consumer-friendly shows such as the NBA playoffs, and Apple’s getting set for The Second Annual Month of iPhone Ridiculousness in the coming weeks.

Research in Motion has a touch-screen BlackBerry in the works that should be out in the third quarter, according to a report Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal has echoed a previous report from The Boy Genius Report that RIM’s BlackBerry Thunder will arrive later this year exclusively on Vodafone and Verizon’s networks. The device is seen as an answer to Apple’s
iPhone, which will likely be running on AT&T’s 3G network by the time the Thunder arrives.

You may remember that a few months ago, Toyota unveiled a robot that can play the violin. Let’s just hope that the two companies don’t team up, or those music-loving robots are bound to figure out that they can get rid of us pesky humans altogether.

After being named world champion of Crave’s nonviolent robot tournament, most robots would probably have been content to rest on their laurels, put on a little weight, and settle into a sad, drug-addled existence only to wake up 10 years later and realize that they’re out of money, and their fans have moved on. But Honda Motor’s Asimo is not like most robots.

After handily taking that title, Asimo has a new role now. He’ll be conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on May 13, leading the orchestra on just one song, “Impossible Dream” from Lost in La Mancha.

(Credit:
Honda)

Famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma will also be performing that night, though not on that particular number. Both celebrity appearances are part of a program that will benefit music programs at Detroit schools. Honda has given more than $1 million to the symphony orchestra to create The Power of Dreams Music Education Fund, which will help fund master classes, an introductory class, and private lessons for Detroit students. (More details on the program are here.)